The invention disclosed herein relates generally to detectors for detecting thermal radiation and particularly to the class of detectors where the energy of the absorbed radiation raises the temperature of the detecting element and as a result changes the properties of the detector. Bolometers are resistive elements fabricated from a material having a large temperature coefficient so that the absorbed radiation changes the value of electrical resistance.
In the past bolometers have typically used infrared sensitive thin film materials which are not normally used in integrated circuits such as permalloy. The use of materials such as permalloy complicates the fabrication of bolometers in that numerous completely independent masks are required for the underlying integrated circuits and for the bolometer element and interconnection.
Thus, a need exists for a method of making an integrated infrared sensitive bolometer element from a material that is also typically used in integrated circuits.